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As of May 27, 2005 |
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for international
journal
X-Ray Spectrometry
(John Wiley & Sons Ltd.)
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Sciences |
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Synchrotron X-ray fluorescence unveils Archimedes' hidden manuscript
(May 18, 2005) |
Recently, a very old copy of Archimedes' writings, which had been
erased, written over and even painted over during the past 1,000 years,
has been analyzed by X-ray fluorescence with a sub-micron X-ray beam at
Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory, California, United States.
The palimpsest, which is preserved at Walters Art Museum in Baltimore,
is a goatskin parchment on which a 10th-century scribe copied some of
Archimedes' manuscripts originally written around 220 B. C. Later, the
ink was erased by being scraped off with a pumice stone. Further damage
was done when forgers painted Byzantine religious images on four pages.
Archaeologists have successfully analyzed much of the 174-page
palimpsest by conventional methods using visible and ultraviolet light,
but several pages, including those under the paintings, remained
obscured. The main idea behind the work at Stanford is that the ink
contains iron pigment, and therefore the analysis is basically the
mapping of iron K X-ray fluorescence. As the ink is only 1-2 microns
thick, the use of a sub-micron beam was crucial. The analysis revealed
that the hidden text on two of the pages is about floating bodies and
the equilibrium of planes. Surprisingly, the third page is a previously
unknown introduction to Archimedes' Method of Mechanical Theorems. The
main source of the news is an article by Heather Rock Woods, Stanford
University,http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/may25/archimedes-052505.html
For further details, contact Neil Calder, Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center, Phone +1-650-926-8707, or Uwe Bergmann, Stanford Synchrotron
Radiation Laboratory, Phone +1-650-926-3048,
bergmann@SLAC.Stanford.EDU |
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X-ray spectroscopy can observe movement of atoms at 100 times improved
resolution
(May 5, 2005) |
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A joint research group from the Universities of Sheffield and Warwick
(both in the United Kingdom) and the European Synchrotron Radiation
Facility (ESRF) in Grenoble, France have recently reported an
interesting application of a dispersive XAFS (X-ray absorption fine
structure) spectrometer, which has no moving parts and is thus
inherently more stable than a conventional step-scanning instrument,
thereby permitting comparative measurements to be taken rapidly. The
measurements were performed on a FeCo alloy thin film located between
the poles of a magnet, which induces a saturating field in the sample.
The magnets were rotated via a stepping motor such that the induced
magnetization, causing the strain, lies either along or perpendicular to
the X-ray polarization vector. Transmitted X-ray intensity measurements
were made repeatedly at every 90 degree angle between the magnetization
vector and the polarization vector. An entire four-quadrant measurement
took about 1s, with repeated measurements accumulated over a 2h period.
The differential absorption spectra obtained in this way can give atomic
displacements due to magnetostriction. The research group demonstrated
that it is possible to observe the movement of atoms with a resolution
of 0.01 Å i.e., an improvement of 100 times on the previous level. For
further details, see the paper, "Measurement of femtometre-scale
atomic displacements by X-ray absorption spectroscopy", R. F.
Pettifer et al., Nature, 435,
78-81 (2005). |
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Sub-picosecond
X-ray pulse reveals atomic-scale dynamics
(April 15, 2005) |
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Projects involving international
collaboration are currently under way at the Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center, in the U.S., using
very bright pulses of X-ray light one thousand times shorter than those
typically produced in conventional synchrotron rings. One of the topics
studied very recently concerns melting- how solids transform into
liquids on ultra fast time scales. In the experiment, laser light was
used to melt a crystal of InSb, and then ultra-short X-ray pulses were
sent to probe the material. The scattered X-rays provided a glimpse of
the first step in the transition from solid to liquid. It was found
that the transition state is governed by inertial dynamics, simply
stated by Newton's First Law as: an object in motion continues in
motion. For more information, see the paper, "Atomic-Scale Visualization of
Inertial Dynamics", A. M. Lindenberg et al., Science, 308,
392-395 (2005). |
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X-ray fluorescence analysis suggests the possible death by poison of
Agnès Sorel, the first royal
mistress of France
(April 2, 2005) |
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At beamline ID18, ESRF, scientists studied pieces of hair and skin of
Agnès Sorel, who was the beautiful mistress of 15th century French king,
Charles VII. Very recently, from X-ray fluorescence spectra,
they found that Sorel's remains contained
abnormal levels of mercury. The manner of her death was previously
unknown, but incredibly high levels of mercury have been found in her
remains. This finding will give fresh impetus to the search to reveal
the the truth behind this historical event. The source of this news is
the web page of ESRF,
http://www.esrf.fr/NewsAndEvents/PressReleases/sorel/ |
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Creep damage analysis by synchrotron X-rays
(April 1, 2005) |
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A team of scientists from the Technical University in Vienna, the
Technical University in Berlin and the ESRF have combined tomography and
diffraction using 80 keV X-rays to observe creep void evolution and the
correlation to texture and microstructure development, which are
important parameters for understanding the lifetime of components
subjected to high temperature loading. The studies were carried out for
a brass alloy, CuZn40Pb2, which contains three
phases: -brass, s-brass, and Pb. They developed a specifically designed
creep device in order to avoid artifacts during the tomography, and
therefore the path of the incoming and the emerging X-rays over a
complete 360 deg turn of the sample is identical. A tensile load of 25 MPa
was applied by using a spring in order to avoid vibrations, and the
sample was heated to 375
ºC
by an induction-heated loop around the
bottom of the sample. The results reveal that void growth versus time
follows an exponential growth law and that the formation of large void
volumes coincides with texture evolution and a steady state in the
development of dislocation density. The in-situ determination of void
evolution in bulk samples opens up new ways toward the assessment of
creep damage to the strength of materials and subsequently towards
lifetime predictions of samples and components subject to high
temperature loading. For more information, see the paper,
"Simultaneous Tomography and Diffraction Analysis of Creep Damage",
A. Pyzalla et al., Science, 308,
92-95 (2005).
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New wiring technology makes possible super-conducting detector arrays
(March 24, 2005) |
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Super conducting devices are promising as high energy-resolution
detectors for soft X-ray and/or mass spectrometry. As the device size
is quite small, e.g., several hundred microns squared, arraying has been
one of the most important technical targets for enhancing detection
efficiency. So far, it has been difficult to increase the number of
arrays, because of the incoming heat problem when connecting wires from
devices operated at 0.3 K to electronic circuits at normal temperature.
Dr. M. Ohkubo and his colleagues at the National Institute of Advanced
Industrial Science and Technology, Tsukuba, Japan recently succeeded in
developing a novel technology using thin co-axis wires of 0.33mm in dia.
They also attached great importance to material selection. As a result,
it has become possible to connect more than 100 arrays, yet the incoming
heat is extremely small at 5.4
x 10-6 W. The
increase in temperature has effectively been suppressed to 15 mK. For
more information, contact Dr. M. Ohkubo, Phone, +81-29-861-5685, Fax
+81-29-861-5730, m.ohkubo@aist.go.jp,
http://unit.aist.go.jp/riif/srg/index.htm |
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Synchrotron microbeam detects trace of tin in rat sperm
(March 24, 2005) |
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A Japanese group is using a
brilliant synchrotron microbeam at the SPring-8, Harima, Japan to study
the marine pollution problem caused by organic tin compounds, which are
known as environmental hormones because of their harmful influence on
the
endocrine system. The scientists attempted to determine Sn distribution
in the testes of rats exposed to tributyltin chloride, which was orally
administered to rats at a dose of 45 x 10-6 mol/kg per day for 3 days. They
employed a 37.5 keV X-ray beam of 3 x 3 micron2 to
detect Sn K X-ray fluorescence from the sperm of a seminiferous tubulem,
the key point being that measurement can be performed for single cells,
thus enabling cell-selective analysis. For more information, see the
paper, "Tin accumulation in spermatozoa of
rats exposed to tributyltin chloride by synchrotron radiation
X-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF) analysis with microprobe", S.
Homma-Takeda et al., Nucl. Instrum. & Methods,
B231, 333-337 (2005). |
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7th Compton Award – G. Schmahl & J. Kirz
(March 1, 2005) |
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The Advanced Photon Source (APS) and APS Users Organization (APSUO)
announced that the 2005 Arthur H. Compton Award was presented to Gunter
Schmahl and Janos Kirz for pioneering and developing the field of X-ray
microscopy using Fresnel zone plates. Because of their leadership over
the last 30 years, X-ray microscopy has evolved into a powerful method
for the study of nanoscale structures and phenomena in many areas of
science. Former recipients of the award are: Martin Blume, Doon Gibbs,
Namikawa Kazumichi, Denis McWhan (2003); Wayne A. Hendrickson (2001);
Sunil K. Sinha (2000); Donald H. Bilderback, Andreas K. Freund, Gordon
S. Knapp, Dennis M. Mills (1998); Philip M. Platzman, Peter M.
Eisenberger (1997); Nikolai Vinokurov, Klaus Halbach (1995).
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New Products |
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UNC scientists develop promising new X-ray device using carbon nanotubes
(May 12, 2005) |
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Dr. Otto Zhou and his colleagues at the University of North Carolina (UNC)
and a UNC start-up company, Xintek, Inc., have invented
a field emission X-ray source
based on carbon nanotubes that
can generate a scanning X-ray beam to image an object from multiple
projection angles without mechanical motion.
The key concept is a gated carbon nanotube field emission cathode with
an array of electron-emitting pixels that are individually addressable
via a metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor-based electronic
circuit. The device can potentially lead to a fast data acquisition
rate for tomography and other related radiography with greatly
simplified instrumention.
The research group already has obtained U.S. patents.
For more information, see the paper, "Stationary scanning x-ray
source based on carbon nanotube field emitters", J. Zhang et al., Appl. Phys. Lett.,
86, 184104 (2005), or
contact Dr. Zhou, Phone +1-919-962-3297,
Zhou@physics.unc.edu
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GE Inspection Technologies sells new compact industrial X-ray film
processor
(April 24, 2005) |
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The new NOVA X-ray
film processor is the latest addition to GE Inspection Technologiesf
range of field-proven processors. It has been designed for
non-destructive testing applications in industrial environments, such as
pipeline inspections to be carried out by split teams. The NOVA,
measuring 0.4m2 (1.3ft2) and weighing 80kg
(176lb), has a standard processing capacity of up to thirty 35 x 43cm
(13.8 x 16.9 inches) films per hour, while developer immersion times
range from 12-150 seconds. For more information, Phone +49-22336010,
Fax +49-2233601402,
GEInspectionTechnologies@ae.ge.com.
http://www.geinspectiontechnologies.com/products/XRay/FilmEquipment/Equipment/nova.html
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Corporate |
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PANalytical opens new regional application laboratory in Shanghai, China
(April 27, 2005) |
PANalytical has announced the opening of a new regional application
laboratory, in Shanghai, China. One purpose of the lab is to ensure an
assessment of the analytical requirements for individual samples so that
users can test the technology before buying, Another task is developing
analytical methods and solutions based on requirements from the customer
side. The company decided to open the new laboratory because of the
rapid and significant growth in demand for analytical applications in
the Asia Pacific region, in particular in China. For further
information, Phone +31-546-534444, Fax +31-546-534598,
info@panalytical.com
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SourceOne Healthcare Technologies, Inc., and Shimadzu Medical Systems
form alliance in the U.S. medical market
(April 13, 2005) |
SourceOne Healthcare Technologies, Inc., and Shimadzu Medical Systems, a
division of Shimadzu Precision Instruments, Inc. (Shimadzu Corp. SHMZF),
announced that they have signed a contract giving SourceOne nationwide
rights in the U.S. to market and distribute a medical-imaging system
specifically manufactured by Shimadzu for SourceOne. Shimadzu will
produce the X-ray clinical diagnostic unit for SourceOne, which will
distribute the system nationally as the Mobile Star II, a cordless
mobile X-ray product equipped with a high frequency inverter X-ray
generator and designed to perform radiography examinations in remote
locations. For more about SourceOne Healthcare Technologies and
Shimadzu, see
http://www.sourceonehealth.com and
http://www.shimadzu.com respectively.
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SpectroscopyNow.com |
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For additional news about X-ray analysis and other spectroscopy
sciences, browse the Wiley website.
http://www.SpectroscopyNow.com |
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Kenji Sakurai
Director, X-Ray Physics Group,
National Institute for
Materials Science (NIMS)
and Professor, Doctoral Program in Materials Science and
Engineering,
Graduate School of Pure and Applied Sciences,
University of Tsukuba
1-2-1, Sengen, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-0047 Japan
Phone : +81-29-859-2821, Fax : +81-29-859-2801
sakurai@yuhgiri.nims.go.jp
http://www.nims.go.jp/xray/lab/ |
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